I stepped back. “You already did.”

Melissa slid a paper across the table. “This is notice of administrative suspension pending full review. Security will collect your devices.”

Andrew’s tone hardened. “This is harassment.”

“No,” Melissa replied. “This is documentation.”

Then Vanessa did something none of us expected.

She grabbed the folder and flipped through it with shaking hands.

Her expression changed with every page.

Dinner receipts. Hotel invoices. Jewelry purchases. Car service logs. Expense approvals. And then, halfway through, a charge I recognized instantly—a boutique furniture store in Lincoln Park. Two thousand four hundred dollars. The date hit me like a blow.

Three months earlier, Andrew had told me our savings were tight and we needed to delay the down payment for the fertility clinic consultation we had been planning for nearly a year.

Vanessa looked up, horrified. “You said you were using your bonus.”

Andrew lunged for the folder. “Give me that.”

Daniel caught his wrist.

The movement was sudden and messy enough that two restaurant staff members rushed forward. Chairs scraped. Someone gasped. The man with the badge stepped between them.

“Back up. Right now.”

Daniel released him but held his ground. “You used company money to cheat on your wife with mine. Congratulations, Andrew. You managed to destroy four lives at once.”

Andrew’s eyes were wild. “You don’t know anything about my life.”

I had never seen him fall apart in public. At home, Andrew was controlled. Strategic. Polished. The kind of man who corrected grammar in texts and sorted receipts by size. But there, under the warm amber lights of a downtown restaurant, he looked exactly like what he was: a man who had run out of lies.

Melissa turned to Vanessa. “Mrs. Mercer, I recommend you keep copies of any financial statements tied to joint accounts.”

Vanessa looked at Daniel, then at me. For the first time, real fear filled her eyes.

I should have felt victorious. Instead, I felt empty.

The gift bag still hung from my wrist.

I placed it on the table in front of Andrew.

“Happy anniversary,” I said.

Then I walked out.

The cold hit me the moment I stepped onto the sidewalk.

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